Attleboro neighbors agog as bear hangs out in backyard tree

A young black bear was spotted several times in Attleboro last weekend, causing a scene when it clung to a tree in a residential area Sunday evening for about two hours.

The bear was in a tree behind a home on Lamb Street, onlookers said, where several police officers and a Capron Park Zoo official tried to control the animal as neighbors gathered to watch.

“There were easily over 100 people on the street, maybe 50 to 75 feet away from the bear,” said Bill Jones, who owns the house next door. “That in itself was very scary to me and my wife because” there were very young children in the crowd.

Around 9:30 p.m., Massachusetts Environmental Police were called to the area, spokesman Reginald Zimmerman said yesterday. The environmental police officers ordered the crowd to back away and had local police turn off their lights – and the bear left soon after through Jones’s yard.

“No more than five minutes after that happened, we could hear branches cracking and we could see the shadow of the bear coming down the tree,” Jones said. The bear then climbed over Jones’s fence and ran across the street into a wooded area.

The bear had been spotted several times over the weekend, Zimmerman said, but did not cause any problems. The appearance follows a string of black bear sightings over the past month in areas including Wayland, Framingham, and Weston, but this is not unusual, he said.

“Basically, what happens is around this time [of year] moms kick [the cubs] out of the dens, and they go out in search for food and wander until they can find their own territory,” Zimmerman said.